Auditions for Student Directed Showcase (SDS) invited students of all grades, regardless of experience in theater, to be cast in one of four shows in the Patil Performing Arts Wing last Monday and Tuesday.

During lunch, students auditioning for SDS waited outside of the student directors’ teacher and mentor, Laura Lang Ree’s room for their one-minute performance to demonstrate their skills. The four shows, The Importance of Being Earnest, Removing the Glove, Grover, Dystopia!, are directed by Sana Aladin, Emre Ezer, Chetana Kalidindi, and Kayvon Solaimanpour, respectively. Many performers and teachers are enthusiastic about the storylines and its unique characters.

“The shows are wonderful, and there are such good varieties of plot twists and interesting shows and so much for students to sink their teeth into as young actors,” Lang-Ree said. “They are going to have a great time, and the directors are just wonderful.”

The process of preparing for this year’s showcase  is  the same as it was in previous years. However, the overall themes of the plays the directors have chosen this year are different from those of last year’s selections.

“This year there are all comedies and last year there were some dramas, which is interesting, but I’m excited anyway,” Ellie Lang-Ree (10) said.

The audition process began with students  selecting a monologue from a list provided by the directors. The students entered the audition in groups of five, each performing for one minute. In callbacks, which took place  after school on Wednesday, the directors selected different actors and actresses, based on their auditions, to perform specific roles in each of their shows.

“It’s quite a complicated process, but to begin with, we put all the auditions into several 10 minute slots to get a feel of what we want each person called back for,” Emre Ezer (12) said. “In the callbacks, which usually takes place the day after auditions end, we divide all the actors into three big time chunks. In each time chunk, each of the directors get a number of the actors and we have the actors read scenes from our shows.”

The directors looked for passionate and hard-working performers in the process of casting students  to roles

“Mostly, I want to cast people who are hardworking and enthusiastic, and who have unique ideas about the show but are also able to take notes well,” Sana Aladin (12) said.

The two performances of the shows will take place on Jan. 6 and 7.